new release

12 days until the release of THE SECRET OF EVERYTHING (Tuesday, December 29), and to celebrate, here is another little giveaway.

The Secret of Everything is centered in a little town that has, quite by accident, become a center of food culture. One of the characters in the book is 8-year-old Natalie, who is very particular about food, but not in a traditionally child-like way. Natalie reveresfood–the flavors and smells, the combinations and the colors–and she hates it that hardly anyone takes her passion seriously. She is working her way, one menu item at a time, through the menu at The 100 Breakfasts Cafe (including the eggs Benedict and huevos rancheros, thankyouverymuch), and she has a passion for salt, and that passion weaves a thread throughout the story. Below is an excerpt to introduce you to one of my favorite characters ever, but first, the giveaway.

In the comments, post a story about a favorite food from your own childhood. Next Wednesday, I’ll choose a name and send you a Salt Sampler Collection that includes some of Natalie’s favorites, including Himalayan Pink Salt (pictured left), Fleur de Sel de Guérande, red Alaea Hawaiian, and two others. It was inspirational and delightful to explore the textures and flavors of these salts for the book, and I know some of you will enjoy it, too. (And I know we will enjoy your food stories, too!)

EXCERPT, from THE SECRET OF EVERYTHING, by Barbara O’Neal :

Before Natalie’s dad had to work on Saturday, rescuing somebody who wasn’t supposed to be climbing on the rocks anyway, they were all suppose to go on a picnic. Instead, they got stuck at Grandma’s, eating fish sticks and ketchup, and now they were going on a picnic today and it was hot, hot, hot.

Natalie sat in the shade beneath the tree in the plaza, holding her sister Hannah’s hand, waiting for her dad to come out of the drugstore with sunscreen. They had to walk to the lake, naturally, because nobody could ever just drive anywhere around here. Already her skin was prickly down her back. Her grandma said she should wear a hat, but Natalie just did not see how that would make a person cooler.

She would rather stay right here in the shade all day and read a book. Climb up into the tree, maybe, and then come down later and go into Le Fleur de Mer and look at salts from the Dead Sea, which she imagined was probably a desert, all glittery in the sunshine like diamonds even though it was big crystals of gray salt. The lady in there didn’t like Natalie to come in by herself, she said it was nothing that would interest a child, but she didn’t know Natalie. Or that she had her own salt cellar and was just waiting to find the right salt to put in it.

THE SECRET OF EVERYTHING will be out in 2726 days! Reader feedback so far has been extraordinary (check out the comments at GoodReads.com), and I’m very excited for everyone to read Tessa’s story.

To celebrate, I’ll offering a some little contests and giveaways over the next few weeks. This is the first one. I am giving away FOUR free ARCs of THE SECRET OF EVERYTHING. As soon as I draw names, I’ll run to the post office and mail them out, so you will have it by next Friday.

To win, just leave your name and email in the comments and I’ll draw 4 names on December 8. You should have it a couple of days later!

I’m still learning how to navigate around here, but I wanted to welcome everyone. Sit down, have a margarita or a tamale, and help me get ready to celebrate the release of The Lost Recipe for Happiness, out on Tuesday. Tuesday! (One month away for my Australian friends.)

I have assembled a contest for you, with a couple of luscious giveaways. Check back by Sunday for details–you have a chance to share some of your favorite meals of all time with the rest of us, and I will share some of mine.

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Barbara O'Neal fell in love with restaurants and the secret language of spoons when she was sixteen. She spent more than a decade in various restaurants, from dives to cafés to high cuisine, before selling her first novel. O'Neal lives with her partner, a British endurance athlete, in Colorado Springs. Read More…

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